Publications:

Abstract: Climate change has increased rainfall uncertainty, leading to greater production risks in agriculture. We examine the gender-differentiated labor impacts of droughts using unique individual-level panel data for agricultural households in India over half a decade. Accounting for unobserved heterogeneity across individuals, we find that women’s workdays are 19% lower than men’s when a drought occurs, driven by the former’s lack of diversification to the non-farm sector. Women are less likely to work outside their village and migrate relative to men in response to droughts and are consequently unable to cope fully with the adverse agricultural productivity shock. We find suggestive evidence in support of social costs emanating from gender norms that constrain women’s access to non-farm work opportunities. The results highlight the gendered impact of climate shocks, potentially exacerbating extant gender gaps in the labor market.

Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the potential of social protection programs in mitigating labor market shocks. We examine the role of one of the world's largest employment guarantee schemes, India's MG-NREGA, in cushioning job losses in one of the worst affected economies due to the pandemic. Our findings indicate that regions with greater historical state capacity to provide public workdays under the scheme generated relatively higher employment during the pandemic. Consequently, an increase in state capacity by one MG-NREGA workday per rural inhabitant in a district reduced job losses in rural areas in April-August 2020 by 7% overall and by 74% for rural women, over the baseline employment rate. These cushioning effects strengthened as the mobility restrictions eased and were larger for women who were less mobile and less skilled. Our results suggest that employment guarantee programs can protect livelihoods, but for certain demographic groups relatively more than others depending on the nature and skill level of work offered.

Abstract: This paper investigates the role of women’s labor force participation in the household’s dietary diversity and the value of home-production. Using unique household panel data from Semi-Arid tropics of India, empirical estimations from a household fixed effects model reveal a positive significant effect of workdays of women on dietary diversity (overall and home-produced) and home-production. Our findings highlight a significant heterogeneity in the effect by type of work—paid and unpaid. The results for paid work are driven by a greater decision-making power emanating from labor force participation of women. Unpaid work, on the other hand, operates through the self-consumption of home-produced goods. We show that correcting for endogenous labor force participation of women leaves our conclusions unchanged. The results suggest that interventions boosting female labor force participation in paid activities are nutrition enhancing for the household and work towards improving women’s bargaining power within the household. Moreover, we rule out deleterious effects on health indicators of women despite increased time burden.

Working Papers:

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the vulnerabilities women encounter in labor markets worldwide. We investigate the potential of social protection measures in mitigating declines in women’s labor market participation. Specifically, we look at the Indian context, where lockdowns spurred a reverse migration of male workers from urban to rural areas, exerting pressure on rural labor markets. Despite a 6% rise in reliance on India’s largest demand driven employment guarantee scheme, our analysis reveals a 0.4% decrease in women’s participation during the pandemic, equivalent to a loss of 11,500 person-days of work. However, a gender quota provision helped sustain women’s employment status. In districts where the reservation quotas had not been exhausted pre pandemic, women’s share in public works increased by 2.7%. Our findings underscore the need for mandated provisions and targeted programs for women to counteract labor market withdrawals and bolster overall labor market participation in times of crisis. 


Abstract: Using a cluster randomized control trial, we study the role of women’s social networks in improving female labor force participation. In the first treatment arm, a hyper-local digital job search platform service was offered to a randomly selected group of married couples (non-network treatment) in low-income neighborhoods of Delhi, India. In the second treatment arm, the service was offered to married couples and the wife’s social network (network treatment), to disentangle the network effect. Neither couples nor their networks were offered the service in the control group. Approximately one year after the intervention, we find no increase in the wife’s likelihood of working in either treatment group relative to the control group. Instead, there is a significant improvement in their husbands’ labor market outcomes, including the likelihood of working, work hours, and monthly earnings, while in contrast home-based self-employment increased among wives – both in the network treatment group. We argue that our findings can be explained by the gendered structure of social networks in our setting, which reinforces (conservative) social norms about women’s (outside) work. 


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